


Role Reversal

by Sparrows



Category: Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparrows/pseuds/Sparrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody can keep everything bottled up forever, and Red's no exception. Or; a short break in the Backdoor area goes downhill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Role Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> To avoid problems with which name to use, I've tried not to refer to the man in the Transistor by any particular name. Hopefully it didn't come out sounding too confused.

Red ducks into the Backdoor with Fetch process hot on her heels, and barely manages to slam the door shut before she simply keels over into the sand. For some reason, this area - whatever and wherever it is; Red doesn't know - is entirely off-limits to the Process, making it a valuable place to step in and take a break. The world's still out there.

It'll just wait for her to come back.

For now, though, Red shoves the Transistor into the sand until he's not at risk of falling over, takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.

`[You okay?]`

She nods, wearily, one hand curled almost childlike around the stubby crossguard. She gulps in lungfuls of salt-tasting air and waits for her heart to stop racing.

`[Good, good,]` he says, something like relief bleeding into his tone, audible even past the Transistor's strange filter. His voice is quiet but firm, and Red just keeps nodding like one of those little novelty toys. The kind you find at giftshops, or would have found before the Process arrived. She shifts, curling closer to the Transistor, pressing her back against the flat of the blade as she sits down.

An idea occurs to her. Red reaches out - careful to keep a connection between her and the blade, so that he can still see her and know she's there - and as carefully as possible, traces letters into the sand in plain block caps using the tip of her finger.

I'M OKAY, the message reads, followed by a simple little smiling face. He laughs at that: a soft, relieved noise.  
`[Good to hear, Red.]`  
A pause as she wipes out the first word with the flat of her hand and rewrites it: YOU OKAY?  
`[Well, I'm still in the sword, so... uh. Thanks for asking. Yeah, I'm fine.]`

Red makes a pained sort of noise and pats the flat of the blade comfortingly, using the other hand to scribble a large heart shape into the sand. Around them is the hushed noise of the Backdoor Beach; crashing waves and the distant sound of music. Red hums along to it, weaving the faraway tune into a melody with nothing more than the vaguely-buzzing sound of what's left of her voice.

She's just trailing off into nothing when she wipes out the previous message in the sand with her hand and writes something new.

WE ALL BECOME? she writes, adding a heavily-simplified doodle of the Transistor with what appear to be music notes around it. He gets what she's trying to ask. This would be easier if there was a terminal around; typing's faster than scrawling in the sand.  
`[Of course I know the words to that one. I was there for every performance and practice, remember?]` He's almost laughing as he says it; Red can just about _hear_ the smile in his voice.

Red clears her throat in a brief, harsh spray of noise, before settling down to hum a vaguely-improvised backing track. After a few moments he starts singing as well, the deeper, slower vocals and plain backing making the song feel subtly different. He's always had a nice voice, and Red fondly remembers times where she'd tried to get him to sing with her. The sudden role reversal feels wrong, somehow.

About halfway through Red picks up the sword, mindful of the somewhat sharp edges, and re-plants the tip into the sand between her outstretched legs. To his credit, he doesn't stop singing, even when Red leans forward and wraps her arms around the sword in the closest thing she can manage to a hug.

It's not long after that when she goes from humming to crying. Or rather, she tries to cry. The tears are coming out, droplets gathering upon her eyelashes before rolling down across her face, but the noise is... well. It's like someone recorded Red's crying and then chopped out most of it; the little gasps for air and shuddering sobs cut off abruptly. It's unsettlingly similar to the noises Sybil had made shortly before being integrated, perhaps minus most of the distortion.

`[Red?]` he asks, cutting himself off in the middle of a line. `[Red. Hey. It's fine. I'm here. Red - we're okay. I'm not leaving you again any time soon,]` he continues, repeating her name like some sort of prayer. The Transistor's unblinking red eye flares brightly with his distress, but there's nothing he can do to help short of trying to soothe her through words. It's not really working, though.

The hand still stroking absent-mindedly down the flat edge of the blade goes still and Red shakes her head. One slender, shaking hand reaches out and she swipes a few letters into the sand.

I WANT TO SING.

Pause. Rewrite.

I WANT YOU BACK.

And then the tears come again, and this time Red shifts her grip on the sword until her forehead is pressed to the blade's surface. She holds the blade as close as possible, shoulders trembling; judging from the horrible, aborted noises leaving her frame, as well as the increased flow of tears, Red should be outright _howling_ by now. But she's not, because the Camerata took her voice when they took his body, and all she can do is make the pathetic, keening sounds of a broken woman.

`[Oh, Red,]` he murmurs, straight into her ear. `[I'm... I'm right here. I love you.]` Now it's his turn to hum, shifting through every song he's ever heard her sing in one low, soothing stream of sound. Red presses her cheek against the cold blade and squeezes her eyes tightly closed, the tears evening out until she gives one last, ragged sigh, and pulls away from the sword.

`[C'mon. We need to keep moving,]` he says eventually, and Red just takes a deep breath, uproots the sword, and strides back out of the door and back into the fray.

The city's waiting for them, after all.


End file.
